Donald Trump Cranks Up Presidential Bid

Property billionaire Donald Trump is taking advantage of his wealth and endless supply of media friendly quotes to hog the airwaves and give momentum to his possible bid for the White House in 2012.

Trump is not fussy who he takes aim at. President Obama is an obvious target but Donald has also got stuck into Republican candidate Mitt Romney (“a small-business man”), and a whole host of countries.

On the weekend, Trump had a go at Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), accusing China, South Korea and Saudi Arabia of “ripping off America”.

Warming up now he suggested the Arab League should simply have “paid the US billions of dollars to get rid of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, instead of expecting the US to fund a confused bombing mission.”

Walking enthusiatically into the media trap, Trump was asked how he would deal with Libya. Donald said, “Either I go in and take the oil or I don’t go in at all. We can’t be the policeman for the world.”

Asked to clarify if he would take the oil, Mr Trump said, “Absolutely. I’d take the oil. I’d give them plenty so they can live very happily. I would take the oil.’

”You know, in the old days … when you have a war and you win, that nation’s yours.”

Mr Trump has also signed up to the Obama birthplace conspiracy theorists questioning if the president was ‘really’ born in Hawaii.

He called Obama a “weak president, that kisses everybody’s ass”.

“I hate what’s happening to our country,” he told CNN. “We are not respected. We’re scoffed at. We’re laughed at. We are a whipping post for the world.”

“I wish I didn’t have to do it. I would prefer not doing it, but I love this country.”

The nominations for Republican presidential candidates closes in June, but even if Trump does not gain any favour there he might decide to run as an independent.

The problem for Trump, is that he is suffering from the same virus Sarah Palin has. That he opens his mouth without thinking and is playing to a narrow domestic audience.

A lot of his simplistic, right-wing rhetoric might go down well in the Republican heartland, but to most rational international observers he just sounds like a dick.

If Trump was to become President Trump, America would be an even bigger laughing stock internationally, and have even fewer friends that it does now.

At times Trump compares himself to Ronald Reagan. But Regan had charm and tact. Two qualities that Trump has only read about in books.

President Obama has his faults and has not delivered all that many in the US and abroad hoped he would, but in international affairs he has shown due respect to other countries, who in turn have restored some of the respect they had for America, before George W Bush learnt to speak in sentences.

With Trump in charge he and his supporters would not be content unless they are “whipping someones ass” and having America “calling the shots” in everything.

That is a recipe for more contempt and more ridicule. But then right-wing populists like Trump are oblivious to words like subtle, diplomacy and humble.

Trump has the freedom to say what he likes. But if he ever ends up with the power to carry out his fantasies, then the planet is in serious shit.